Published December 18th, 1981 – Eagle’s Scream, Eagle Rock High School

Rubik’s Cubers from throughout Southern California descended upon Six Flags Magic Mountain Saturday for the Cube-A-Thon com-petition, a qualifying event for next year’s international contest.

Winner Minh Thai, 16, of Los Angeles (left) shows the concentration required of cubers as he gets all the colors lined up in an astonishing 39.4 seconds. For his efforts, Thai won $500 and a round-trip for two to New York for the finals. Brad Pavia, 17, of Malibu came in second at 40.25.

Eagle Rock Senior Minh Thai established himself as the national Rubik’s cube champion when he appeared on television’s “That’s Incredible” December 7.

Thai, representing the Western region, out-twisted eight other regional winners with his fastest time at 26.04 seconds. His prizes were a trophy and a check for two thousand dollars. In addition, Thai will represent the United States in an international competition. The contest appeared on the Monday, December seventh show of “That’s Incredible!” but actually had been taped about three weeks earlier. “It was really hard,” said Thai, to keep the news of his victory to himself, but he “signed a contract” to keep the outcome of the contest a secret until it aired on television.

According to Thai, it “took all day” in the studio to wait for the actual competition.

“They didn’t start taping until nine o’clock at night.” The nine competitors were divided into three groups of three persons each. While one group was on camera, the other two were in sound-proof rooms backstage where they wouldn’t know the times of the other group. Each group was given tries at solving the cube.

After the first round, Thai’s time of 38.99 seconds placed him in second place.

“I was pretty nervous the first time, he remarked.” If it weren’t for his nervousness, he probably could have finished “two or three seconds faster”

Thai’s time in the second round was an incredible 26.04 seconds.

“That time, I didn’t make any mistakes.”